Asymmetry

By Lisa Halliday Granta, 272pp, £14.99

Asymmetry is Lisa Halliday’s debut novel and it is structured as two seemingly unconnected novellas. The first of these tells the story of the relationship between famous older writer Ezra and young editor Alice; the second is the first-person narrative of Iraqiamerican economist Amar, who has been detained at Heathrow airport, and the book ends with an interview which points to the link between them. If it is indeed detail that “brings fiction to life,” as Ezra tells a creative writing student at one point, then Halliday has succeeded brilliantly.

Imbalances of power are a theme throughout, and the book contains a number of instances of characters being questioned, whether by a doctor, a jury official, an immigration officer or the presenter of Desert

Island Discs.

In this way, and in others, the novel asks its own questions about who we are answerable to, and through whose eyes we see the story. ■